All the weather channels are saying partly cloudy
and we are sun-dazed, wrapped in the warm folds
of an afternoon whose moon is a polite interruption,
a nail fleck on blue sky, a reminder that this day
will never make history, but will soon be part of ours.

And I think of it, then: our prairie wide as water,
coyote winking through reedy stalks of grass; the faded dirt
path dotted with yellow, ripened kernels precious in the way
only fool’s gold can be. All of it was just outside the walls
of our house, all of it could have been ours

but for the shards of mirror that blocked the front door,
all the words in the dictionary ours but for the senna
that thickened my tongue, all the weather channels saying
mostly sunny, but the shades drawn against the smallest intrusion.
Even the moon could not knock on my door.

You forgive me for the days that did not make our history.
We are far from that prairie now, far from that house with its walls
and its splintered mirror. We are in Minnesota, our bare faces
pointed towards the sun, and we are fool’s gold, earthly flames
marking the worn path towards home.